Contrary to some of the most intriguing speculation following the Supreme Court’s June 2012 healthcare decision, Chief Justice John Roberts did not write both the majority and dissenting opinions, new academic research concludes.

The chief justice reportedly switched his initial vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act and ended up siding with the Obama administration, which argued that Congress could establish the program’s insurance mandate through its taxing authority. The chief’s first draft opinion invalidating the law was recycled as a dissenting opinion, the theory goes. . . . . . Read More »

So we weren’t surprised to hear that patent litigation is booming as well, according to a study released Tuesday by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Some quick highlights of the study:

The number of patent litigation filings in 2012 rose 29% over the number in 2011. A total of 5,189 patent actions were filed in 2012, according to the study. As the study notes, however, the number should be taken with a grain . . . Read More »

The National Security Agency’s broad collection of U.S. phone customer data received its first significant legal challenge since the disclosure of the program last week.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, alleging that the National Security Agency was violating the ACLU’s constitutional rights. The ACLU said it is a customer of Verizon Communications Inc.’s Verizon Business Network Services and it said metadata from the ACLU’s phone calls are being collected. . . . . Read More »

Law Blog on Thursday wrote about the statute allowing the government to compel the production of “business records” relevant to a foreign intelligence probe.

Another statute, Section 702 of FISA, provides procedures for spying on the online communication of foreigners or groups located outside our borders.

In a statement Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said Section 702 “cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.”

But the statute passed by Congress in 2008 leaves quite . . . Read More »

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into server systems operated by Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple, according to the Washington Post and the Guardian, citing what the newspapers said was an internal NSA document about a top-secret program dubbed Prism. The document also says that Dropbox, the cloud storage service, is “coming soon.”

Notably missing from the list of companies: Twitter. What explains its absence? . . . Read More »

When Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, it laid out the rules for authorizing surveillance for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence. But the law we have now isn’t the same one that was in the books then.

Prior to the 2001 Patriot Act, the law required the government to. . . . . Read More »

Members of the federal judiciary generally are a fairly anonymous bunch, but the judge who allowed the National Security Agency to collect phone records from Verizon is making his second recent tour through the national spotlight.

The signature on the surveillance order published Wednesday by the Guardian newspaper belongs to U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Florida, a Reagan appointee who made waves in 2011. . . . . Read More »

The leak of a judicial order requiring Verizon to give the government vast amounts of phone records offers a rare peek into America’s most secretive court.

So what exactly is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?

More than a generation ago, Congress created the court as a guard against surveillance abuses.

Until the late 1970s, presidents had “claimed an inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillances for non-criminal, national security purposes,” according to James G. McAdams, III, a legal instructor for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and a former federal prosecutor.

But post-Watergate outrage over domestic spying scandals — when it emerged that bugging devices had been used by prior administrations to spy on a congressman, legislative staffers, civil rights leaders and other U.S. citizens in the name of national security — prompted Congress to set some ground rules.

So in 1978, it passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, signed into law by then-President Jimmy Carter.

The statute spelled out the circumstances under which the government could eavesdrop for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence. . . . Read More »

But those who don’t go to bed thinking about patents (Law Blog sometimes does) might have a few questions about this. What exactly is the ITC? And what is it doing weighing deciding disputes between technology heavyweights?

Let’s try to anticipate — and then clear up — your most pressing questions.

I thought that Apple and Samsung were airing their patent grievances against each other out in California federal court. What is going on? . . .

And on the street level, high-end mobiles are causing another kind of trouble that has authorities seriously concerned: About 1.6 million Americans had their smartphones stolen in 2012, in what the San Francisco District Attorney is calling a “national epidemic”.

About Law Blog

The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

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